But I’ve come to recognize the value of apprehension – because fear which is not squelched or pacified by the mental hocus pocus of pious devotion can be a great motivation for necessary change. Without the thought-stopping effect of 365 biblical “fear-nots,” these days, when I am afraid, I have no other option than to actually figure out: What is so terrifying? Why am I scared? What should be done to prevent my fears from materializing in reality? What do I need to do differently?

What if all the grassroots groups who work with the families who are consistently pushed to the margins and thrown under the bus talked about their causes as if they were all connected? What if we worked as if we were facing the same stigma and hate? What if I, in my parenting, felt connected to immigrant mamas fighting to reclaim their community? What if I, in my resistance, understood deeply my relationship to mothers who lose their children to juvenile justice, foster care systems, and/or incarceration?

Let’s recognize that the way to honor motherhood is to respect and support a woman’s decision about whether she is ready to be a parent. That means making sure that every pregnant woman, regardless of her ability to pay, has health care insurance coverage for all of her medical needs, including abortion.

If you ever want to sleep at night, don’t try raising a black boy in America, because it means not having the luxury of the safety bubble that other parents have around their children, and never having the luxury of being able to sleep at night.

All this burning of fossil fuels ends up in our lungs, or in the sky warming our planet. I growl at the statistics. My blood boils at seeing mostly kids of color wheezing in the emergency room right alongside of us. We need a big transition.